The geriatric syndrome of “frailty” is one of the greatest challenges facing our aging population, and is associated with adverse health outcomes, dependency, institutionalization and mortality. Frailty prevalence increases with age, with up to 30% of the population meeting frailty criteria by age 90. The US population of (frail) elders is rapidly growing, and health care utilization and associated costs among this population account for a disproportionate amount of US health care costs. In geriatric care, prevention, early diagnosis, intervention and management of frailty are critical and growing challenges.
Beyond the geriatric population, frailty as a clinical syndrome has also been observed in select younger patients. In particular, those with underlying chronic viral infections such as HIV have been found to be frail. Similarly, patients with chronic renal insufficiency on dialysis have been diagnosed as frail, as well as adult survivors of childhood cancers. Hence frailty is becoming increasingly recognized as a distinct clinical syndromic state, in a wide range of patients, over a wide range of ages.
Frailty syndrome (FS) or just ‘frailty’ is a clinically-recognized syndrome and phenotype in which an individual develops a reduced tolerance and capacity to deal with stressors. Frailty manifests as a limited capacity to maintain homeostasis and is characterized by a clinical state of age-related biological vulnerability to stressors and decreased physiological reserves with alterations in energy metabolism, decreased skeletal muscle mass and quality, and altered hormonal and inflammatory functions. FS is also associated with excess functional decline, dependency, increased healthcare utilization, hospitalization, institutionalization, and death.
An unmet need exists in developing devices, methods and systems to diagnose frailty, to determine its stages and severity, to monitor its status and/or change over time, and to differentiate it from other debilitating diseases or from simple age-related functional decline.
This Background is provided to introduce a brief context for the Summary and Detailed Description that follow. This Background is not intended to be an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter nor be viewed as limiting the claimed subject matter to implementations that solve any or all of the disadvantages or problems presented above.